User talk:Mu301/Archive 2006

Welcome to Wikiversity!
Hi Mu301,

Your proposed area sounds very interesting - in my eyes there could be a parallel between your project and Bloom clock project, which is about collecting data on flowers' blooming times - perhaps you could develop an ongoing database of coordinates and planetary movements? Also, you should take a look at the as yet meagre Category:Astronomy, and develop what's there or try to interlink projects/materials a little better. All the best with that! If you've any questions - about anything - please don't hesitate to ask. Cheers! Cormaggio talk 21:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yay, an astronomer! Welcome!--Rayc 20:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome!--mikeu 15:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Learning to learn a wiki way
Learning to learn a wiki way Hi Mu301,

Coming from a empirical background in biological chemistry I had thought that Wikiversity wasn't suited to an empirical approach to learning. However your interest in Observational astronomy has shown how wrong I was. With access to empirical data from astronomical observations (or other published sources of empirical data) why shouldn't Wikiverstiy be a site of study for such observations. I'm very interested in how you will develop this area of learning. I think that there will be considerable cross over between the methodologies of your project and that of the learning to learn a wiki way project. This project is hoping to discover how to make the most of using a wiki as a tool for learning. Maybe you could add your thoughts and answers to the questions at the talk page at Talk:Learning to learn a wiki way. Mystictim 01:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * We'll see how this activity develops as people start to use it and provide feedback. For now I'll provide some lessons on learning the basics of astronomy by browsing the sky images.  Then I'll show how to analyze an image to collect scientific data.  The student will learn by using the same tools and going through the same process that astronomers do.  The activities could involve things like measuring the position of an asteroid as it moves against the background stars, or measuring the change in brightness of a variable star.  Eventually, I could upload raw images that I've taken at the telescope and students could help process the data, and the results could then be uploaded to a database that astronomers use to pool and share observations.  For instance the Minor Planet Center for asteroid observations or AAVSO for variable stars.  I'll post some thought to the wiki learning page once I've had a chance to look around and get oriented.--mikeu 15:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Mu301 and thanks for adding your learning blog to the Learning to learn a wiki way project. Have a look here at the beginning of a group reflective blog to see an alternative method of including your reflective posts in more than one place. Mystictim 21:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Astronomy
The crux of the matter:
 * the school of astronomy was merged with the school of physics.
 * Topic:astronomy is redirected to School:astronomy (historical reasons, I think)
 * Department is just a funny name for Topic:. It may as well be centre or division.

To me, School: and Topic: are different only psychologically. The point is to have a limited number of Schools and an unlimited number of topics. A topic may be a topic in the usual sense or an academic subdivision in a school, with whatever name you choose. --Hillgentleman|Talk 17:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

school and topic pages
I'm not sure if you ever saw Namespaces. In my opinion, Wikiversity should make use of "School:" and "Topic:" pages as content development projects (called Wikiprojects at Wikipedia). This is a distinct function from that served by "Portal:" pages. Portals are user-friendly pages that guide browsers to Wikiversity content. "School:" and "Topic:" pages are for collaboration by editors who want to help plan, develop and organize educational resources. Schools are just broader subject areas while "topics" are more narrow subject areas. I am not aware that a good reason was ever given for getting rid of the School of Astronomy. The "long list of links to topic pages" was not a list of courses, it was a list of topics, each of which can be a content development project. It made sense to have that list at School:Astronomy. --JWSchmidt 20:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Blog
Hi Mike, I really like the fact that you're keeping a reflective blog. I saw that you had added a note about searching Wikiversity content and your frustrations with this (this then led me to work on Searching, which still needs work.) But then I noticed you took it away - did you figure something out, or did you feel it wasn't relevant anymore? And just a query about etiquette - would you prefer me to add blog-related comments to the blog's talk page, or would you prefer me to add them here on your own talk page? Cheers.. Cormaggio talk 17:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * hi, and thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to get myself organized and where to put my thoughts.  I moved that chunk of text to Topic talk:Astronomy where I had posted some other notes about things that I found confusing regarding the astronomy pages.  Then I asked for comments on those questions at Colloquium.  I figured the search problem would get more notice in the new location.  As for adding comments, my original intent was that comments would go directly into User:Mu301/Learning blog and the page would be a collaborative authoring effort to explore ideas.  But, for that I probably should not have named the page a "blog" and also not created the page in my own User: namespace...  This note is starting to turn into a learning blog entry, so I'll finish my thoughts there.  But, to (finally!) get around to answering your question: for now, post comments anywhere that seems convenient.  I watch all these pages and will notice anything new.--mikeu 18:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

File formats for uploading
I saw your note about wanting to upload raw images that are in the w:FITS file format. Currently, the file formats accepted by Wikiversity are very limited. Robert Elliott 05:29, 25 December 2006 (UTC) Email me off line for more details. Click Here